How to backup your high resolution AT&T Nokia Lumia 1020 photos and get 50GB of free cloud storage

One design choice on the Nokia Lumia 1020 has a small handful of people a little flustered: you cannot share the full-resolution photos on Windows Phone using any of the built in social networks. No email, no NFC, no uploading to SkyDrive, etc. The reason for that is because each 38MP image is between 9 and 15 MB in size and that would chew through bandwidth.

The oversampled 5MP images you can do anything, including all the above and auto-uploads to SkyDrive. Those weigh in at a more reasonable 3MB and are meant for sharing.

But for AT&T users (and only AT&T customers), there is a way to auto-upload your full, high resolution photos to the cloud for backup: AT&T Locker. And if you act fast, you can bump their free 5GB of storage to a whopping 50GB, which is ideal for you future Lumia 1020 owners.

On the Lumia 1020, the app comes preinstalled and when you sign up, you get 5GB of free storage. However, as we pointed out a few weeks ago, if you act now you can upgrade that to a massive 50GB, which is kind of awesome.

To do so, follow these steps:

Launch app

Create an account

Scroll to ‘More’

Settings

My Plan

Upgrade Plan

You should see the 50GB plan marked as “Limited Time Offer”

Select and done

And that’s it. From the app you can choose to have it auto-upload your images over Wi-Fi and Cellular, just Wi-Fi or neither (upload manually), so everyone should be happy.

Why AT&T Locker and the Lumia 1020 go hand in hand

A full, high resolution image uploaded via the Lumia 1020

As we mentioned above, the Lumia 1020 cannot share the massive 38MP images from the device. The only way is to plug the Lumia 1020 into a PC and do the drag and drop routine. To be honest, we’re totally fine with that. We shoot full-frame DSLR images for our site and resize them to around 300kb for posting. There’s really no reason to send someone a 10MB, 38MP image especially when you have a beautiful, oversampled 5MP (3MB) one to share instead.

But for backing up purposes, we can see where having a wireless solution would be helpful. AT&T Locker does allow backing up of the Lumia 1020’s full high resolution images to your account. It works quite well and you can even share that photo with others via email, Twitter, Facebook or MySpace with the app’s built in social networks. Once the image is shared, guests can even download the full, high quality photo to their PC.

What a shared image looks like on AT&T Locker

In other words, problem solved:

You get 50GB of free, cloud storage, accessible by your phone or PC

You can auto-upload/backup your photos

It saves your high resolution images, wirelessly

So remember this tutorial when you receive your Nokia Lumia 1020 this Friday. There’s no reason to not opt in, especially if you think this will pose a problem for your routine.

Already have an AT&T Windows Phone?Download AT&T Locker now and get setup using our steps above to ensure you receive free 50GB of online storage. Windows Phone 8 only.

I just installed the AT&T Locker and it only backed up the 5mp photos automatically. Can someone let me know whether this still works as the article described to backup the High Res as well? I have yet to find an option to turn it on as the previous post. Thanks!

can someone tell me how to get the High Res to upload automatically wirelessly or maybe i cant? i ask cause at one point the article says drag and drop only then at the end it says wirelessly, and att locker isnt doing the high res wirelessly for me and i have yet to see a option to turn it on.

Hi Daniel
You wrote "The oversampled 5MP images you can do anything, including all the above and auto-uploads to SkyDrive. Those weigh in at a more reasonable 3MB and are meant for sharing."
When I capture using 5MP mode, I get a 2-3 MB file. But, when I share, by sending an email, only a 650 KB file is sent. So, how do you share the 2-3 MB file?
Perhaps I should be asking this in Nokia's support forum. Thought you might know.
karlo88

If anyones been watching the political stage for the past year, the reason you are not getting high storage, low latency SD card options with these giant cameras is simple. You're being pressed to store the super high rez images on their cloud service. Cloud computing = NSA accessable. You don't think they want access to photos of you and people you associate with that they can losslessly zoom in on in great detail? Of course that's illegal, but they won't have to prove why or how they did it until the trial, and maybe not even then (Patriot Act). You think it's crazy? Look at how many services have moved to cloud computing, and then use your imagination. Is it faster, simpler, lower bandwidth than just storing on your computer? No? What good does it do, then? It's provides storage, but at the cost over time it would be cheaper to just buy yourself another hdd. So then what... ?

I keep hearing that WP8 doesn't allow full resolution uploads but with an app like "Camera Roll Sync" or the ability to change backup settings in the SkyDrive app, aren't you able to upload full resolution photos already? Of course, 50GB is nice from AT&T but I plan on using the 1020 and unlocked.Camera Roll SyncFull resolution photo & video backup w/ SkyDrive

I got the "not available on your phone" message on the WP Marketplace website also, with a Lumia 920 AT&T here.
I'll try on my phone later when it's done charging. (too lazy to go upstairs and grab it for this)
I signed up for the 50GB on the AT&T website though, so I'm good on that.
Sidenote: does anyone else think the PC/web app/site for AT&T Locker has a header that looks very similar to one of the former WL wave backgrounds?

Awesome X 2! Y'all are the best. The incredible depth of tips and information is why the WPC app is one I review multiple times daily. Well worth the price of admission. I would pay 10 times the price! Keep it coming.

I tried to backup some videos to AT&T Locker from my computer. Uploads are unbelievably slow and the interface is among the worst I've ever seen for cloud services. Thanks for the tip though. I'll keep the 50GB and hope they improve over time.

The "not being able to share (full-resolution) photos" is a problem I've experienced on the Lumia 920 (not even at full-resolution), let alone the 1020. At least 50% of my recipients are unable to receive my standard lumia 920 photos (as in not even trying specifically to send full-res photos; just opening camera on default setteings, pointing and shooting and then trying to send).

I have an AT&T 8X and cannot download as well. I've been asking Windows Phone Support (which is absolutely useless) and the guys here at WPCentral and no one has been able to give me any useful information. Windows Phone support via Twitter said that I should check with AT&T to see if they can tell me why it doesn't work. Even though MS authorized the app to be in their store and says it will work with any WP8 devices.
I've never once received helpful support for any MS product or service via Twitter. It's like they aren't even familiar with their own products.

Have they fixed the locker app? Last I looked it had 1 star rating. I had it installed for a week and only a few pics uploaded. Tried multiple reinstalls. When I couldn't figure out my poor battery life, I removed Locker and battery drain gone. Ain't with the 50GB for the headache and uselessness.

That is now the second AT&T app I found today which doesn't say anything about Windows Phone availablitliy. When you go on their AT&T Locker web site it offers only iPhone and Android apps as download option, the same with their international calls over wifi app. What the heck is going on at AT&T, its like they want WP to not gain a larger marketshare.

Here's my idea: if you sign up for AT&T Locker and you buy a 1020, AT&T should give you a deal whereby you're allowed to upload images to the Locker over your data connection and it will not count against your data cap. That would be a great idea and something that might get a lot of people into the habit of using AT&T Locker over other cloud storage solutions.

a couple of questions if I might....
1. I can't believe ATT used FLASH instead of HTML 5/CSS3 for the PC client - it breaks with windows 8.1 (preview) but that is a personal issue :)
2. I am upgrading my L920 to L1020 and so tried to create my locker account. it seems that my att user ID that is my mobile number won't work as acccessID. anyone else have that problem?

Can you guys see if you can find out why the app won't download for the HTC 8X on At&t? I'm getting the message "This app is not available for your phone." when I use the link in this post and I'm an AT&T user with a WP8 device.

Hey guys, I just had an idea for a new feature to be possibly added in future WP updates. Well I was thinking you could have the option to automatically pin newly downloaded apps to the start screen, what do u reckon? When I was thinking about it it seemed like it would be quite a handy lil feature.

There's no good reason to have disabled the ability to utilize SkyDrive for 38MP/34MP photos. The user should be able to choose to permit this over WiFi and even over cellular.

Now we're forced to use AT&T Locker for this, which won't have any of the familiar and common ways to access like SkyDrive, but will have its owns methods and ways of doing so, possibly with similar support, or possibly offering fewer options... where's desktop syncing, for instance (not saying it isn't there, haven't looked, but that's important to me to have).

Whatever social network features there are in AT&T Locker, it's apparently not working right in the beta. But that's somewhat beside the point -- where's the integration with my Microsoft Account, through Windows Phone? Why do I need to configure these social networks users/passwords again, separately, for AT&T Locker. It's a very poor decision.

It's frustrating that these kinds of decisions get made, likely with little thought about the overall ecosystem architecture. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

@Daniel : Do you know if the uploads of these high resolution photos to the ATT locker over cellular connection is counted towards your data allowance?
If so, those like me on the 2GB plan may want to beware :)

I thought Lumia 1020 automatically over sample it to 5 mega pixel in real time. With the condense 41 mega pixel should give excellent reproduction. Would be excellent to print poster size of the camera phone. Lumia FTW

Can you guys see if you can find out why the app won't download for the HTC 8X on At&t? I'm getting the message "This app is not available for your phone." when I use the link in this post and I'm an AT&T user with a WP8 device.

Am I the only one that can't log in with the app on my 920? I re-read the article and it didn't say you couldn't log in with your existing WP8 phone so I'm kind of stumped. I went to the web site and signed up, got the free 50gb of space, but I can't log with the app on my 920.

I have the 920, and I downloaded the app, logged in through the app and set up the 50 Gb and took all of two minutes to complete. I just used my existing ATT account I had set up when I switched to ATT a year ago. Worked like a charm.

This is nice and all, but trying to upload images, and short videos from the phone is extremely slow and my 920 turns into one hot ass rock. Then the battery drains like hell from the heat, even uploading from my desktop is painfully slow. I thought it could be my WiFi, but no way, then possibly thought it could be a problem with Comcast upload speeds, ( I consistently pull 90mbps DOWN and roughly 20mbps UP) but no problem there. Its very frustrating knowing I have 50gb of free cloud storage, but I absolutely do not want to use it because of this problem.

Android didn't get rid of SD support. All that changed was that you can't install apps to SD cards anymore. Apps can still store additional data on the card, and of course you can store music and pictures on it, which I assume is what the OP was concerned about.

I think you're exaggerating a bit. Aside from the One, HTC is still making phones with SD slots like the newly released Desire and Butterfly, and even the 8XT. So are LG and Sony. And we know how big Samsung is. That's a pretty huge chunk of Android sales.
I haven't heard anything about Google not developing SD card support anymore, but if you have an article link I'd be interested in reading it. I couldn't find anything with a quick web search.

"The only company hanging on to SD cards is Samsung, everyone else in the industry is moving on. Even Moto's big phones yesterday don't have SD card support. It's becoming the norm, not the exception."

Those With SD cards:

LG (Some); LG Optimus G Pro, Mid-range Devices
Samsung; King of MicroSD cards
Sony; All of there Xperia's have MicroSD card support
ZTE; there latest flag ship has MicroSD card support
Huawei (Some); Low-end - Mid range devices have it; there news Phablet has it

Vs

HTC (they never have had them, AFAIK)
LG (some); LG Optimus G, Possible the G2
Motorola
Huawei (Some) there latest flagship does not have it

Seems to me, more of the big names make more phones with MicroSD card support than those without on android~

Ok, so the industry has decided that having high capacity, low latency, low cost expandable storage on the device is a bad idea- nothing I can do about that. :-)
So this same industry thinks streaming multiple megabits per second for 1080p screens is both realistic and reliable?
Lastly, if they don't want to provide the expandable part, at least give us the option of high capacity? 32GB on flagship phones doesn't cut it- just read the many threads about storage woes here on this site.
None of this directed at you Daniel, but rather the industry as a whole...

We're going backwards on storage progress, as far as I'm concerned. The cloud is great, but it's just in time for the major carriers to get rid of unlimited internet and start raping you on data charges. Phone manufacturers should include SD support in response to this as a goodwill gesture toward their customers... But instead they're phasing SD support out? Ridiculous. We get more and more useless features in these friggin devices but when it comes to features that actually make sense they can't seem to deliver.

This is so bogus - no microSD support and using "The Cloud" as an excuse... THEN we are limited and can't have automatic uploads of the full rez files to "The Cloud" because of "bandwith" limitations....

I have had it since it came out and it is slow and does not work as stated. The uploads hardly work and they are not automatic. I've had it for over 2 weeks and it has only uploaded 21 photos. Seems to only work when I have the app open and even then it doesn't work all the time.

The locker app seems to be a steaming pile, won't upload automatically and doesn't seem to upload selected pics either. I've had it installed for over a week and it uploaded 11 pics total out of hundreds in my camera roll⤵:(

Same here... About two weeks and its only uploaded a little over a thousand out of 3.5k pics from my old iphone (figured I'd load them all on at&t locker so I can access them easily on my 920)
I will say the Windows Phone 8 version of the app is a lot nicer than the iOS version!

Just signed up and did a photo test upload and a video test upload. I'm on a hotel wi-fi connection right now that's kind of slow, but both uploaded relatively quickly and video playback through the AT&T app was pretty flawless. Not too shabby.

And then he said MySpace, lol are they even still around? I wish Tmobile had a 50GB Storage option, then again I get unlimited internet, so I really just wish Skydrive had free 50GB Storage. ); Good option though if you're buying a 1020!

Just what the world needs another cloud storage provider. Realisticly, this is a Microsoft fail because these high-res images will not be supported by Skydrive and autoloaded on wifi networks. I though the upload to Skydrive was Microsoft's and Nokia's reason for no SD support. No celleuar networks is understanble, but wifi, that is just a big failure.

I think this is a carrier solution to a Microsoft problem, yes. I'm not arguing so much against the idea of SkyDrive needing this (it does) but I do think people who want to email (or share) a 15MB are kind of lacking common sense.

Not being able to share by email is pretty weird. Sure, you wouldn't want to do it often, but I can totally understand wanting to show off my 38MP beast of a photo to some friends, especially initially. Deal breaker? No. Odd and annoying? Definitely.

Surely you did not type the first line of your response with a straight face. This is neither a "Microsoft problem" nor a "carrier solution". It is, instead, a blatant capitulation by Microsoft to AT&T in order to allow AT&T to promote their "Locker" product over SkyDrive.
This is entirely unacceptable behavior from both AT&T and Microsoft. And at best, you're being disingenuous in your reporting. At worst, you've assumed the role of AT&T PR flunkie. Congratulations on your demotion.

Tried that and got low resolutions so did it again and got lower resolution. My 920 worked fine. NOw trying to use AT&T Locker and it has uploaded 36 pics it says, I count more, But stops. I have a white Monitor screen with "loading running across the top of the screen but nothing in the screen and nothing being uploaded for a day now. Also stops even that when I leave the phone alone for a while.
Help or where do I go for help!

Getting 1020 in a couple of days but can't sign-up as I have a WP7 device right now. Is there another way to sign up to get around this lil limitation?
Also, if i follow the link provided above and create an account, will i be able to upgrade to 50GB when my 1020 arrives or should I wait til i get it and use the app?

If you log into your wireless acc't with a username (as opposed to wireless #), it's a little confusing that this is what you have to do. Created a new account and up and running with 50 gb. Now all I need is a 1020 to fill it up....

I have 45gb total for Skydrive. 25gb for original sign-up...I think a few years back. 20gb for Office 365 subscription.1000+ photos and 1000+ documents and I still have 42.6GB left. Now with the 50gb from AT&T I'm feelin' pretty good about storage. I have way too much space on everything though...It's getting to the point where I don't remember where some things are. All told on all devices PC's, Laptops, Tablets, Phones...I have too much space...never going to fill it all up...